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Back in 2011, Letitia Webster, now senior director of global sustainability for VF Corp., was asked to start and lead the company’s global sustainability program. This involved creating a framework to align sustainability efforts across the corporation’s 30 brands, including The North Face, Timberland and Vans.

To accomplish this task, Webster looked closely at waste, energy and water issues connected to the production of the brands’ diverse products. During her assessment, she noted the great environmental impact of the chemicals used throughout the manufacturing process. That observation sparked the eventual creation of CHEM-IQ, VF’s new chemical management program launched with pilot factories in 2013 and set to scale across the corporation’s entire supply chain this year.

For a company that produces more than 500 million units a year – many of which are high-performing technical products designed for professional athletes, which require robust chemistry to meet wind-, water- and odor-resistance needs – moving the needle on how VF and all of its suppliers manage chemicals was not a lone undertaking.

Many chemicals used to make our favorite T-shirts, jeans and jackets are ultimately discharged as wastewater into bodies of water around the world – once at the manufacturing stage and many times over the product’s lifetime when consumers wash their clothes at home. Some of these chemicals make their way into rivers, seas and oceans and can harm aquatic life, not to mention humans.

“When the industry moved to Asia, water issues went by the wayside,” Webster explained. “[With CHEM-IQ], we’re trying to build a platform that takes into consideration all regulations across the line and create something that becomes a new norm. If we find a chemical that might be an endocrine disrupter, we will eliminate it.”

As an $11 billion global apparel and footwear business with an international portfolio of brands, VF’s chemical management program is not only focused on accelerating the use of safer chemicals throughout its supply chain, but it is also hoping to influence global industries. Taking a cue from The North Face’s “gift” of its Responsible Down Standard to industry group Textile Exchange, VF hopes to gift CHEM-IQ to an external group and spur transformational change in chemical management across sectors.

“It’s a very easy business case: It’s not expensive. The mills pay for the testing, and we got [the testing] down to $50 per chemical, which is really manageable. The benefits far outweigh any costs,” Webster said. “We want to make sure we’re moving down the path of better, smarter, safer chemistry … It does the industry no good if it’s just a VF program.”

Beyond providing a mechanism to evaluate chemicals, CHEM-IQ connects suppliers to a low-cost chemical testing system to screen out toxins from supply chains.

Corporate initiatives to target chemicals management, as a part of sustainability strategy, have arisen partly in response to a rising tide in advocacy and consumer concern about the chemical makeup of everyday products. Greenpeace’s ongoing Detox Fashion campaign, for example, has increasingly raised consumer awareness of hazardous chemicals in our clothes. The campaign has challenged big names such as Adidas, Nike and Zara to eliminate hazardous substances from their supply chains and products.

Online and mobile tools, such as GoodGuide, also empower consumers with information about products’ overall health, environmental and social performance — encouraging the public to vote with their dollars.

With CHEM-IQ, VF is not only turning a potential reputational risk into an innovative opportunity, but it is also reassuring consumers about the company’s products and heartening other industry players to do the same.

For more information on the CHEM-IQ program, check out the infographic below.

Nayelli Gonzalez is Managing Director of Marketing & Strategic Partnerships at Conveners.org, a capacity building organization that supports the growing ecosystem of impact-focused conveners, accelerators, and mappers. A sustainability innovation strategist and storyteller dedicated to purpose-driven work, Nayelli has advised startups, nonprofits, small businesses and Fortune 500 companies to drive engagement and amplify positive impact in the world. She's a trained journalist with an MBA who writes on sustainable business and social impact trends for a variety of publications.

About this series

Through this in-depth series, we’ll spend the next four months exploring the environmental and social impact of fashion. We’ll take you through the lifecycle of fashion: from the design phase, through material procurement and product construction in a factory setting. We’ll look at what it means for apparel to be “fair trade.” We’ll also take a peek inside the consumer’s closet and look at how consumer demand influences the industry. Finally, we’ll explore the leading second uses for worn-out garments and the future of the sustainable fashion movement as a whole.